


On the First Day of Christmas

by ShanaStoryteller



Series: 12 Days of Christmas 2012 [1]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas, Fluff, Kittens, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanaStoryteller/pseuds/ShanaStoryteller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark loves cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the First Day of Christmas

Tony Stark loves cats.

It's not a well known fact, but it's true, and something that each of his friends knows well.

Jarvis, the first person (including the boy's parents) to fall utterly in love with a pair of intelligent, mischievous brown eyes, is well aware of how every year Tony would ask Santa for one thing - a little kitten, with a green ribbon around its neck that Tony would love forever. He'd take Tony to pet stores and shelters and let him play with the cats, young and old alike, but always had to tell him no when he begged to take them home, because his mother is allergic. Eventually, Tony stops asking, but he always kisses the top of every cat's head before he scurries to Jarvis's side, the same way the older man does to him before tucking him in every night, and every time Jarvis has to blink extra fast.

*

Halfway through Rhodey's freshman year and Tony's sophomore, he ends up with a few bags thrown over his shoulder and at Tony's single (lucky rich bastard). When he sees him, the younger boy cocks an eyebrow, "Moving in already? My, you are a fast worker, oh, what will my father think."

Rhodey drops his stuff to the ground and collapses onto the couch. After a beat, Tony closes the door and sits down beside him. Rhodey pushes the smaller boy to the other end of couch, ignores the hurt look he's given, and stretches out so his head is in Tony's lap. It only takes a second for Tony to relax, and then he's lightly scraping his fingernails across Rhodey's scalp. He sighs, finally replying, "Dishonor on you, dishonor on your family, dishonor on your cow."

Tony half giggles and half snorts, because he is a closeted Disney movie fan, and Tony - lightly muscled like the swimmer he is, too tight t-shirts, and a grin like a shark - is only impressive until you have a couple of minutes of conversation with him and realize what a dork the guy is.

"Not that I'm complaining," the fifteen year old says, "because I love you in an entirely inappropriate way, but any particular reason you're moving in?"

"I'm black," he says, eyes closed.

"I know?" Rhodey waits, because Tony's not an idiot. "Oh. Okay. I could have them sued?"

"Nah, but thanks. Also, I'm sleeping on the couch."

His eyes are still closed, but he physically feels the weight of Tony's pout, "Don't you love me, honey bear?"

Rhodey snags Tony's hand so he can kiss his inner wrist, and Tony freezes. The younger boy has been teasing and taunting and everything but all out begging for months, and Rhodey hasn't responded in the least, but now he says, "The age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen."

Tony snorts, "Seriously?" then adds, "We don't have to have sex to be in a relationship."

Rhodey smirks, "When was the last time you went out with someone?"

Tony, even at fifteen, has a reputation and blinks as he thinks back, "Two months. Ish."

"I haven't been on a date or had sex in about two and a half months. Excluding you."

Rhodey is treated to the site of Tony blushing, something he'll learn to control in later years, of it spreading from the bridge of his nose to tips of his ears. "Oh." He pauses, "Can I kiss you?"

He is an adult, eighteen mother fucking years old, and that question shouldn't make his stomach jump like it does. He nods, and then cranes his neck as Tony leans down.

They're interrupted when Rhodey feels something small and heavy land on his legs, and he shouts, jumping up so that his forehead cracks with Tony's, and he just manages to see the end of tail darting under one of the chairs. "What the hell, Stark? You sneaked a fucking cat in here?!?"

Rubbing his head, Tony scowls, "Not all time! Just for a couple nights sometimes. We live in Cambridge. It gets . . . cold, sometimes." There's a stubborn tilt to his chin that Rhodey will come to hate, "There are a lot of cats, and they never do anything wrong, but they get ignored and neglected anyway. They mean well, it's not their fault."

Tony is looking at him with big desperate eyes, and Rhodey knows that if he tells Tony no more sneaking in stray cats, he'll stop. But he doesn't think he'll mind, that much, and he's not going to be the next person to tell Tony that he's not allowed to love something.

"Okay," he says instead, scoots back over so that he's sitting next to Tony. His face sags in relief as Rhodey presses two fingers to his jaw and tilts his mouth just right, says "Okay" on more time before pressing their lips together.

*

Pepper figures it out in Malibu, barely settled in, when Tony walks in on her arguing with in old friend who'd taken the knowledge that she'd moved into the area and tried to get her to do her a favor, as any half decent friend would.

"I can't, I really can't, and even if I could, no," she says down the line even as she raises an eyebrow at Tony, waiting for either a halfway reasonable statement about scheduling or a moronic observation for her to ignore. He raises an eyebrow right back, so she informs him and re-emphasizes her denial by saying, "No, I will not cat sit for you. I have a job, I can't sit around your house all day."

"You could bring it here," Tony says, then bites his lip.

Pepper blinks, would have ignored him but for the lip biting, and makes a split second decision, "All right, fine, but I'll be taking care of it here, and you owe me big time."

When she looks back to the doorway after hanging up, Tony's not there. She taps her pen against her lips before shrugging and going back to work. She'll figure it out eventually.

When she brings the cat that weekend, she's sitting on the couch and it's less of a cat and more of a bitty kitten curled on the cushion next to her, as she reads through the hundred and forty seven emails that have accumulated in between now and midnight. She blinks at her computer screen a few hours later, coming out of an idiocy induced stupor. When she realized the cat isn't beside her, she has a minor panic attack, but it lasts no more than the few moments it takes her to look over to the other end of the living room, and she's pretty sure her heart melts in her chest.

Tony, barefoot and grease stained, and sprawled out on the other couch, is snoring softly with the kitten curled on his chest, one large hand cupped around the warm little body.

She snaps a picture and sends it with the caption Cats?

Cats, Rhodey responds. Pepper still isn't sure how she's supposed to treat her boss's ex-boyfriend / current best friend, but sending picture of Tony being human gets her major points, she's figured out.

Jarvis doesn't answer, but she hadn't really expected him to. Rhodey had been nothing compared to the older man, but she was slowly winning him over.

She'll just have to stay until he trusts her not to fuck Tony up.

*

Natasha never figures it out. It's one more strike against her, in Pepper's opinion. The Russian woman didn't know Tony at all, and even still, with this women and rest of the Avengers living in Tony's home, it is her she looks at with a raised eyebrow and cold eyes.

She's not sure how much Tony would appreciate being compared to Marilyn Monroe - actually, she does, he'd love it - but every time she looks at the women all she can think is

"You couldn't handle him at his worst, and you don't deserve him at his best."

*

Steve Rogers figures it out all on his own, because God above, is Stark not subtle.

And it's Christmas Eve, the team's first one together and they don't all mesh together just right out of the uniform yet, and he's doesn't have gift for Tony, because what do you get the man who has everything?

He's just wondering the streets, when he sees a sign in the window of one of those old, rich houses that are now a dozen or so poor apartments. Well. That might work.

Christmas morning, after having received a box or seven of the best art supplies on the market from one Mr. Tony Stark, he slips away to his rooms for a moment, and sees all eyes on him when he walks back in. Should have known he couldn't do that covertly. He feels a flush crawl across his cheeks as stands in front of Tony, on the floor with his back to the couch, leaning against Bruce's legs on one side with Pepper curled up on the other.

"Hey Cap," he grins, "that for me?"

Steve glares even as he holds out the box, "Careful, it's fragile."

Tony rolls his eyes, but shifts so he's sitting upright and cross legged before accepting the box. He frowns at the weight of it, but unties the golden ribbon and lifts up the lid of the red box. He sucks in a deep breath, and his eyes go wide. Steve winces.

Tony carefully, puts a hand in the box, emerging with a tiny brown eyed black kitten, with white markings around his mouth not unlike Tony's goatee. "She reminded me of you, and I know you liked cats, if you don't like her-" Bruce squeezes his arm, silencing him, and watches as Tony runs his thumb over the green ribbon tied loosely around the kitten's neck. She yawns, butting his hand with her head and licking his finger.

Tony makes a sound, small and broken, before clutching the kitten to his chest and hurrying out of the room. Steve looks to Pepper, whom has a hand over her mouth, and apologizes, saying "I thought he'd like her, I'm sorry, I didn't know he's -"

For the second time he is cut off as Pepper throws herself into his arms, "Steve Rogers, he loves her, thank you, you're amazing."

Steve is confused, but everyone is looking at him with soft looks on their faces, so he goes with it.

Later on that night, he comes downstairs to find Tony sitting on the couch with the kitten in his lap. He sits himself next to him gingerly, skittish at any signs of displeasure to send him away.

"What are you calling her?"

"I don't know."

Steve would have something to say to that, but Tony kisses him, so that works too.


End file.
